White Denim rocks Boston

jaymiller

Wednesday

Oct 10, 2018 at 4:22 AMOct 10, 2018 at 2:36 PM

White Denim bassist Steve Terebecki told us last week that their live shows tend to favor more of their harder rocking, most energetic songs, and he certainly didn't lie, based on Tuesday night's raucous rock show at Brighton Music Hall. White Denim played almost two hours, with a nice selection of tunes from their brand […]

White Denim bassist Steve Terebecki told us last week that their live shows tend to favor more of their harder rocking, most energetic songs, and he certainly didn't lie, based on Tuesday night's raucous rock show at Brighton Music Hall. White Denim played almost two hours, with a nice selection of tunes from their brand new album, “Performance,' as well as songs from their long career.

The Austin, Texas, quartet, with James Petralli on lead vocals and guitar, Terebecki on bass, Conrad Choucroun on drums and Michael Hunter on keyboards, delivered a concert that was really a visceral experience, music you felt as much as heard. That served to turn the venue into a road house, with 300 mostly college age fans dancing and partying throughout the night. And the band's panoply of influences was also evident in the many shadings various songs had.

One drawback was that among all that rollicking music and high volume, Petralli's vocals were not always very understandable, partly from the sound mix, which was loud, and partly because he tends to sing really rapidly so that words and lines fly by. That made keeping a proper setlist almost impossible, but we recognized several of their tunes, and the instrumental sounds were strong and clear all evening.

“Backseat Driver” was an early highlight, with one of the band's most unique arrangements, as surging melody lines from Petralli's guitar and the keyboards seemed to be racing past each other in flashes of surging momentum. A bit later “Double Death” rode a psychedelic groove into a section where the guitar solo sounded like the kind of bright, country/bluegrass melody you might hear in a Grateful Dead song, yet the rest of the band was cranking out classic rock rhythms, for an intriguing juxtaposition.

“Magazin,” from the latest album, started out sounding like a smooth rock ballad, then shifted into heavier territory, but without sacrificing that gorgeous initial melody. Another tune from the new album, “It Might Get Dark” was a charmingly buoyant rocker, played at a breakneck pace–and the rhythm section of Terebecki and Choucroun proved themselves to be world class all night, but especially on that song. The song morphed into a long jam, where Petralli's guitar led a ten-minute space excursion, but not your typical jamband noodling, more like the late 1960s/early '70s rockers like The James Gang or Ten Years After crafting yeomanlike jams that started and stopped, turned the melody in different directions, and somehow made it all coherent.

A later song, we're guessing it was “Good News,” started out like Top Forty rock from a bygone era, and then shifted seamlessly into funky r&b centered on Hunter's organ lines. But then with one of the last songs, White Denim roared off with the kind of blitzkrieg paced, heavy roots rock that bands like Jason and The Scorchers used to do. Song titles may have been elusive, and Petralli's between-songs commentary minimal, but there was no doubting White Denim's rocking stew connected with the crowd.